


Some People Paint

by jojothecr



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Blood, Gen, Self-Harm, Written in 2008, season 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-26
Updated: 2011-06-26
Packaged: 2017-10-20 18:09:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/215663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jojothecr/pseuds/jojothecr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Some people paint. Some people bleed, so the others can paint...</em>
</p><p>Before <em>Heaven & Hell</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Some People Paint

Dean’s bare feet pad across the chilly tiles of the bathroom floor, and he comes to a stop in front of the stained and partly obscured mirror, looking at his own reflection.

Every day he stops and simply stares, trying to see more and trying to understand. Closing his eyes against what he’s given back. Flashbacks of scenes he doesn’t remember blur his mind every time he looks into his own eyes, or replay on the back of his eyelids when tiredness overcomes his endeavours to keep them open. As if he’s been in visions and dreams retold what his brain has pushed away and locked up to protect itself from shattering.  
Half awake or half asleep – he doesn’t know. Can’t tell. He’s not sure if the moments when he dreams of fire and unbearable pain, while still feeling the presence of his own brother, is real, or whether it’s just an old movie; yellowed photos and memories so old they might even not be true anymore, while sheer anguish and flames graze his body, licking their way through his skin to the very marrow of his bones. When he closes his eyes, he doesn’t know whether he is awaking or falling asleep. Doesn’t know where he’s going to be when he opens them again.

The dim light above his head flickers lazily as if dancing in a flutter of wings; black like ravens’ that should bring salvation, but which have spread only confusion so far, and seem to follow him everywhere he goes, like his shadow, since the moment he’d crawled out of his own grave.  
His eyes travel over his body, over soft pale skin, which he remembers was once torn to shreds and gore. There’s nothing now. Nothing that could tell him what has happened in the previous four months. No one would believe he’s been in Hell. Sometimes he almost doesn’t believe it either. Just the mark on his shoulder whispers that something isn’t quite how it should be. A burden he can’t shake off. Fingerprint of his Guardian angel, who claims to be serving to higher powers, but who might be just playing with him like a cat with a mouse. Never says more than he needs to, speaks like a Bible Dean’s never read, and could never understand. An angel, who accuses him of having no faith, as though he’s given up on it himself. Dean hasn’t, it was torn away from him the night his mom burnt on the ceiling and his dad fell into a darkness that no one could light.

Dean’s gaze lingers on the shaving set sitting on the sink and his fingers close around a shaving blade before he knows, before he even realizes he’s moved. As the blade cuts through, tearing up the skin of his forearm Dean winces, because it hurts. Just like it should. Proving that his reality is real, proving he’s alive. He smiles blankly, distantly, and draws deeper, watching his blood paint zigzags of ruby across his fair skin.

He feels, more than hears, the shuffle of steps behind him. He starts and reaches for his shirt quickly, struggling to put it on, to hide the cut he’s made, hide the handprint.

Sam approaches him smoothly and silently, and grabs the collar of Dean’s shirt before he can shove his hand into the other sleeve.

Dean looks up into the mirror to try and see what Sam’s up to, but Sam’s eyes are lowered, fixed upon some spot on Dean’s body. Oddly enough, this concentrated and yet faraway look freezes Dean, and he doesn’t even move, doesn’t try to get out of his brother’s peculiar embrace.  
He watches in silent wonder as Sam pulls his shirt down his shoulders and arm, baring his skin and smearing Dean’s blood over his hand and fingers, and then lets it fall to the ground. His eyes finally find Sam’s in the mirror, making him look back.  
Sam doesn’t say anything, just presses his arm alongside Dean’s and rolls up the sleeve of his own T-shirt, silently exposing a few dark, sealed lines crossing the tanned skin of his upper arm.

Sam doesn’t ask and he doesn’t judge. He understands, because he’s been there too. Lost and maybe not completely found, trying to pick up the pieces of himself that used to be crystal clear, but somehow got lost along the way and don’t seem to fit together as perfectly as before.

Neither of them is who he was; strangers to each other, bound by blood and common memories, and still unknown. Like fire and ice. Darkness and light that barely brush, and yet cannot exist without each other. There was the Devil, who’s brought one of them back, and a God who asked an angel to pull the other from the ground - and they both pray they will not be forced to stand against each other in the upcoming, and presumably inevitable, war.

Sam touches Castiel’s handprint; gentle fingers copying the shape carefully, his face crumpled with the pain he imagines is searing Dean’s skin. Pain Dean barely realizes anymore, and only then as a sign of the life he’s been given. Not easier or brighter. Not the one he’s always wanted and could never have, but life nevertheless. No sins erased or soul redeemed – the same darkness inside of him, the same evil all around, only darker, more violent. And yet he embraces it, feels it more now than he’s ever tasted it before. There are still doubts whirling inside his head though, questions he’s not sure he really wants to know the answers for. Sometimes he wonders if he’ll ever have a chance to die. He doesn’t want to, but he’s been pulled to the other side of the river and dropped in half way so many times, he’s started to believe he’s damned by life. Cursed to keep coming back until... until there’s no evil and nothing to fight. Or until there’s no good, and nothing left to fight for.

Sam’s long, warm fingers wrap around Dean’s wrist and he presses Dean’s palm against his chest, over the black outlines of the protective tattoo, making him feel the rapid beating of his own heart. Sam’s chest is a warm, solid rock pressed up against Dean’s back, his heart a steady, rhythmical beat in between his shoulder blades.

“You’re alive, Dean.” Sam whispers.

His eyes sweep up to Dean’s, looking back at him through the mirror; reaching deeper and seeing everything Dean cannot hide: the fear, anguish, sadness, loneliness, emptiness, desperation – Dean’s eyes reflect Sam’s, telling the same story.

Everything has changed and then been turned upside down as well, only to transform once again, gripping reality at its very core, so nothing is the same anymore, and neither are the two of them.  
But they still stand, for falling is too easy.


End file.
